Automated order book with crowd price improvement

A method of providing a crowd price for an item, wherein the crowd price improves upon a proposed pairing price for the item, the method comprising:

• automatically, via a computer, receiving notice at a trading process of a proposed pairing price for the item, wherein the trading process is registered with a market process as being in a crowd for the item, the crowd comprising a subset of a plurality of trading processes that, as a result of registration, is eligible to receive a proposed pairing price for the item and in response thereto provide a price that improves upon a proposed pairing price for the item, wherein an improved price is a price that is higher than the proposed pairing price for buying the item or lower than the proposed pairing price for selling the item, and wherein trading processes in said plurality of trading processes that are not registered as being in the crowd for the item are not eligible to receive the notice of proposed pairing price nor provide an improved price to the market process in response thereto,
• automatically, via the computer or another computer, determining whether to improve upon the proposed pairing price for the item by providing a crowd price, and
• automatically, via the computer or another computer, providing an improved price as crowd price that improves upon the proposed pairing price when the determination is positive.

A method of providing price discovery for an item, comprising:

• automatically, via a computer, notifying a crowd of trading processes registered with a market process of an opportunity to improve upon a book price for the item, wherein as a result of registration the trading processes in the crowd are eligible to receive opportunities from the market process to provide outside of the book a price that improves upon a book price for the item,
• automatically, via the computer or another computer, receiving a crowd price from the crowd for the item, wherein a trading process that provides an improved price as the crowd price is obligated to trade for the item at the crowd price, and
• automatically, via the computer or another computer, providing the crowd price as a result of the price discovery when the crowd price is better than the book price, wherein the crowd price is better than the book price when the crowd price is higher than the highest buy price in the book for buying the item or lower than the lowest sell price in the book for selling the item.

A method of facilitating trading of an item among a plurality of trading processes, comprising:

• automatically, via a computer, notifying a crowd of trading processes registered with a market process of a proposed pairing price for the item, wherein the crowd is comprised of a subset of the plurality of trading process that, as a result of registration, is eligible to receive a proposed pairing price for the item and in response provide a price that improves upon the proposed pairing price for the item,
• automatically, via the computer or another computer, receiving a crowd price from the crowd for the item, and
• automatically, via the computer or another computer, pairing with the crowd price to complete a trade when the crowd price is better than the proposed pairing price, wherein the crowd price is better than the proposed pairing price when the crowd price is higher than the proposed pairing price for buying the item or lower than the proposed pairing price for selling the item.